Dieting is kind of like taking off absolutely all of your makeup and dealing with-loving, even-the results. I know this sounds really strange, especially because most of the time we think that its after we start dieting that we can start loving ourselves again, but that's really not how it goes it all.

Makeup is quite literally a veneer, a façe, something we put up so the world doesn't see us as we really are. Most of the time, I like to think of it as a little white lie. A little way to enhance the best parts of me and smooth over the bad parts.

The thing about using makeup, though, is that it assumes you have flaws. You wouldn't use it if there weren't something you wanted to cover over, right? Now, in reality I just kind of think makeup is really entertaining to play with, but just run with the metaphor for now. Dieting is the same principal as makeup-if you're going to do it at all, you've got to believe that you're flawed. You're too chubby, you could stand to lose some weight, you don't feel healthy or all that good about yourself. Whatever your motive, you're feeling pretty flawed.

The strangest thing, however, is that you can't really succeed in weight loss like you can in putting on makeup. Makeup is by its very nature a temporary fix, but weight loss is meant to be a permanent change. And I've realized that if you want to make true changes in your life, you can't think yourself as flawed.

And the toughest part is, I've been overweight for a really long time, and society staunchly reinforces the idea that not only is it not okay, but my failure to do anything about it means I'm weak, disturbed, or terminally lazy. And you can only resist that so long. For me, the worst part was that I didn't even realize how much I had been effected by all of that, how much it got under my skin, until it occurred to me: I really didn't believe that I would ever, could ever, lose weight. To be honest, I didn't even believe that I'd ever get the band; up until the moment I woke up from anesthesia, I was pretty sure something would happen to stall or interrupt the procedure and I would be left on my own, without the band.

But now it's in there, and other than adjusting to eating again, I've had to wrap my mind around the notion that right now, I have more power to lose weight than ever before. It is suddenly possible. And with this new found potential, it became very obvious that all along, the problem wasn't with my weight loss efforts, it was with the underlying perception that I wouldn't succeed.

So how do I change that perception? I think the first step is realizing that it was the real problem all along, to be sure, but beyond that, I have to take it slow. I have to be really aware of the ways that I've trained myself to get in my own way. Most importantly, though, I have to stop thinking of myself as flawed. I have to be able to look in the mirror without makeup or excuses and be ok with what I see-before I start losing significant amounts of weight. Really, that's the only way it's ever going to be a lasting change. I have to be able to look at myself in the best of times and the worst of times and love myself anyway.

In other news, I went out without mascara the other day. Can't remember the last time I did that.

Written by :

AC Gaughen

 

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